Source
r/KbinMigration•
TheArstaInventor

The Redditor's guide to how Kbin works (your what/how-to guide)

Pinned

If you know anyone who is trying to figure out what/how to use Kbin, share this post to them. You no longer need to explain word by word from scratch every single time, Let's make Kbin easy for everyone.

How do I join Kbin?

Steps: Go to Kbin's homepage, click at "Instances", and choose one of the listed Kbin instances.

Explanation: Think of choosing an instance as choosing your email client/provider (ie: Choosing between Gmail, Yahoo mail or Outlook). When you pick the email provider you want, you simply create an account there. For example, I create an account called "[email protected]", I can still send an email to my friend "[email protected]".

You see what's happening here? It does not matter if both you and your friend use different email providers, you can still connect with your friend and send emails to him even if he uses Gmail, and you may use Outlook, Yahoo mail, or anything else.

The same concept can be applied to Kbin, it does not matter if you sign up on a different instance compared to someone else, all instances are interconnected and you can connect with people from other instances on Kbin.

I am on mobile, how do I use Kbin?

Steps: As Kbin is on early development stages (beta), the open source Kbin mobile apps for both Android and iOS are currently under development. Until then you can use Kbin on mobile using web apps, here's how you do it:

Android: Chrome/Chromium or Firefox

iOS: Safari/Webkit

What are web apps? Web apps (also known as PWA/Progessive Web Applications) act like native applications but runs through your web browser.

What instance would you suggest?

These are currently the best 2 instances available:

  • kbin.social: An instance focused for English-speaking users.
  • karab.in: While mean't for polish-speaking users, both the content and the UI is mainly English, hence we recommend new users consider signing up here instead. This will also help reduce some strain on kbin.social.
  • nadajnik.org or kopnij.in: Both of these instances use a slightly modified UI focused on Polish, hence either of these instances are best for polish-speaking users.
  • (NEW) fedia.io: Run by the same admin behind the infosec.exchange mastodon instance.

As Kbin continues to grow, more instances will join the above list, we will continue keep it updated.

Interested in hosting an instance? Please refer here. Do you already host an instance you'd like to be mentioned here? Please modmail us.

Can I customize Kbin? If yes, how?

Yes! Kbin has in-built customizations, please check the sidebar as shown in the below image to customize Kbin according to your preferences. We highly recommend trying all the options to learn about them.

https://preview.redd.it/pgpx3ctd9f5b1.png?width=323&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=1643178eb59411c7e600172389ee9dd007d319e4

What are subreddits and posts called on Kbin?

​

SubredditsReddit PostsMicroblogging posts/tweet/toot
MagazinesThreadsPosts

NOTE: When you are in a magazine and looking to create a thread, if you click at "+" in the top right corner to create a thread, you will only see these options; "Add new link, article, photo, post or video". As mentioned in the above table, remember that post is for microblogging hence if you are looking to create a thread on a magazine, that is not the right option, instead it would actually be "article". While naming it "thread" would have been much less confusing (and we expect this to change in the future), for now it is called "Add new article" instead of "Add new thread".

Does Kbin have a karma-like system?

Yes, kbin has reddit's karma-like system called "Reputation points". You can check your reputation points by clicking at "profile". We do not yet have a clear picture of how it works, but the reputation system doesn't seem to affect users' ability to create content.

What is the difference between upvotes and boosts?

Up-votes/downvotes on Kbin exactly works like Reddit, but boosts (AKA retweets) are mainly for microblogging. If you use Kbin for microblogging, you are most likely to find boost useful, but if you are using Kbin for content aggregation and discussion like Reddit, you will most likely find upvoting/downvoting the most useful.

How do I know to which magazines am I subscribed to?

  1. Step 1: Click on your username (top right corner)
  2. Step 2: Go to "profile"
  3. Step 3: Find "subscriptions" as shown in the below image to see the list of magazines/communities you are subscribed to.

You can find \"subscriptions\" as shown in bottom right of the image

More planned updates for the guide:

  • Optional Table of Contents (Once more questions arrive especially).
  • More questions answered for Moderators/Community creation and management.
  • Updated guide for mobile once apps are launched.

​

Have a question that's unanswered and not mentioned on the planned section above? Please leave a comment, we will update.

Posted Jun 9, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC · edited

20756
Fade_Dance•

Kbin.social is returning an error page.

Also, I have some specific questions that all new users will have. If a server goes down, are all accounts registered on said server deleted? If so I won't want to register on some random polish server that I don't know the operator of. Can accounts be migrated from instance to instance in case one ends up becoming a "themed server" (political extremism, anime titties, who knows...)?

Ditto with content. If servers go down is content permanently deleted or is it redundantly striped across the network? If my post history can poof in the future, that would be a dealbreaker.

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TheArstaInventorOP•

I believe both kbin.social and karab.in is run by Kbin's developer. So if kbin.social is overloaded, check out karab.in. These two instances would also have more guarantee of not closing compared to the other third-party instances.

Regarding what happens if a server goes down, yes, all of the data in that server will be deleted as far as I know.

Having said that, server deletion will most probably be the last thing that would happen, as server admins are most likely to rather limit new signups and people from joining if their server get's full and they can't upgrade their server yet.

Regarding if you can move your data from one server to another if a server deletion is to ever happen, this feature is available on Mastodon, which means such an implementation is very possible. But keep in mind Kbin is an early beta platform and it's current focus is to fix all bugs in the beta phase, hence it does not have that feature yet, though you can always create an issue here, and suggest that directly to the developer if someone else haven't already.

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Fade_Dance•

Thanks for the info.

I do think it would be nice if content could be mirrored/backed up. Like it there was a community supported repository that held content backups (which others could then download), that server operators could opt into.

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TheArstaInventorOP•

No worries!

This might be possible, maybe it's already planned, or perhaps it's already there. I myself have very recently moved to Kbin, so still learning more about it everyday.

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Ricardo1701•

Is there a way to collapse comments/comments chain, like on Reddit?

This is a major feature that I can't seem to find on Kbin, without it, reading comments becomes a really bad experience

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Zearo298•

I'm assuming the user experience is going to be a lot rougher than Reddit at least until it's out of beta and phone apps are fully finished and working, but I do expect that as long as it catches on enough there'll be some app devs that'll want to make a better experience, and I'd pay for it.

2
glittalogik•

It'll probably get baked into the default UI eventually, but in the meantime you can easily add a browser-side script. You might have figured this out already but I found the solution and your comment from the same google search :)

More info from the script author here.

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Blurb87•

THIS. I really look into kbin as a potential alternative...but it's mobile site really needs a feature to collapse comments on a tree view base. Otherwise it's way to much scrolling to get to the next comment on a specific tree level.

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Commenting_FAST_2•

Man nothing else looks appealing lol

6
xj4me•

So I'm a little confused, is kbin just a front end that allows you to connect to Mastodon and Lemmy instances? Or is it a standalone thing that I can host?

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TheArstaInventorOP•

It's a standalone platform and is not a fork of any other existing platforms, that also supports activitypub and federation :)

The dev himself confirmed that Kbin is his own independent codebase.

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xj4me•

Interesting. That makes sense. Thank you!

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TheArstaInventorOP•

No problem!

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hallettj•

kbin is a server and client implementation; it is not standalone. I had the same question at first. It looks like kbin is designed to interoperate with the others which blurs the lines a little. When I look at kbin.social I see threads from Lemmy instances. But there are also kbin-native threads.

All three use ActivityPub - but because Lemmy is designed for threads, and Mastodon is designed for microblogging things looks kinda weird when you follow Lemmy communities from Mastodon, and there are some compatibility issues. See https://www.reddit.com/r/Mastodon/comments/143i3ql/mastodonlemmy_incompatible/

Because kbin is designed for both threads and microblogging it might be a good entry point to interact with all three systems. I haven't tried it out much to see how it works, but this seems like the killer feature to me.

6
hallettj•

There are more details on how kbin works here https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/11493/A-small-FAQ-to-hopefully-help-new-users-to-kbin

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OpenStars•

It is so ironic that searching for help on kbin (why the "post" made a "microblog" rather than a "thread") led me back to Reddit to have to find the answer... :-P

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Mintyytea•

Is it just me or is there no option to Create a Thread? :o I’m also here again to ask my questions haha

2
OpenStars•

You may also want to figure out the difference between a "thread" and a "post" or an "article". I've already forgotten all of that, and that's part of the problem - the names don't match up what we are used to.

Check out https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/14c187t/the_state_of_the_reddit_alternatives_at_the/ if you want a listing of those with more Reddit-like functionality, e.g. Tildes.net (though they don't want to grow, and have no communities at all atm, just one large one across the whole site), and discuit.net (similar) and scored.co. kbin.social really does look like the best alternative of the bunch - I thought squabbles.io might but I really dislike the more Twitter style, e.g. having to press "Show more" every 1-2 seconds b/c it keeps hiding things, just like the mobile new-Reddit that I also extremely hate.

So yeah, kbin.social is what I'm liking right now - though note that every vote you ever make is publicly recorded and viewable by everyone, which is a HUGE change! Also there's a difference between upvote vs. favorite, and I don't even know what that means really, probably has something to do with the federation aspect, like something ON kbin.social directly could be "upvoted" but something on a federated place like Mastodon maybe gets "favorited" instead, b/c it doesn't have upvoting? (So then what happens to these "favorited" posts - are you going to see more like that, are they like "saved" posts on Reddit? So much to learn!)

TLDR: it's going to take awhile for the technology itself to catch up, and for people who want to use it to learn how to use its MUCH greater complexity ecosphere. There basically is nothing at all exactly like Reddit - and anyway even if there were, it would not function at the same scale (millions of users). Reddit is dead, but there's nothing - at least no single thing - to take its place atm.

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Mintyytea•

I’m enjoying kbin too and trying out lemmy :) I did find out how to make a thread (reddit’s post). It’s super unintuitive, but I’m sure someday they’ll change it. It’s “Add a New Article”. Kbin is new and a lot more barebones because of it. I think they were just trying to get these things out so people can use it. This kind of UI change to be more obvious isn’t too hard though

As for the version of Reddit Saves, unfortunately kbin doesn’t have it yet. Lemmy does though, on each post you can click the 3 dots modal, and click the Star to favorite. It’ll be saved to your profile. I think they will eventually add Save to kbin, it’s just kbin is much newer than lemmy

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OpenStars•

Okay so then kbin's "post" is equivalent to Twitter / Mastodon's "tweet", and those go into the "microblog" uh..."thing", but then the Reddit "post" is equivalent to kbin's "article", which goes into the "thread" feature. Just so we're all clear!:-)

Except people were talking about changing it already, b/c it's too confusing for new people, so whatever you learn now, might be thrown away "soon"?

As for the favoriting then, I apparently confused it with squabbles - there was a heart and I clicked on it, and there wasn't anything else really besides that, b/c there's no down-votes there. Maybe that was it... this is all going to take some getting used to...:-|

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ThebirdsRscroungeing•

Incase you haven't found it yet, go into the community you wish to create it in, click the + symbol at the top right somewhere (on mobile) and select add new article.

1
Mintyytea•

Thanks :)

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ThebirdsRscroungeing•

No worries, it took me a little playing around to work it out too.

1
Rednovs•

Microblogging seems pretty cool actually. Like twitter built into reddit.

3
MinerMark•

What's the difference between threads and posts? Aren't they both a form of microblogging?

3
chickennoodlegoop•

Does Kbin have something like multireddits or custom feeds?

3
icebeancone•

Looks like registration is disabled for kbin.social

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triip256•

Is there an easier way to discover other communities from other instances of the fediverse. My main complaint about the fediverse is each instance having its own version of a community and it making those communities fractured.

2
Kafke•

This is also what put me off of the "fediverse" for so long. They feel like small silos and don't really "federate" well. I joined kbin.social, and just treat it as it's own thing ignoring the other "fediverse" stuff.

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triip256•

I'm already using kbin. Your post does nothing to answer my question.

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Kafke•

I didn't really mean to answer your question. Just commenting lol.

The "microblog" tab just pulls in all federated microblogs. magazines can select certain hashtags to include in that feed.

As for accessing other instances' magazines/threads, I don't know. I'd also like to figure that out...

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triip256•

fair enough.

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Kafke•

I actually just figured out how to access other instance's magazines. it's just including @url.com at the end. It'll show up when you search for magazines. See here. this page is lemmy.ml's gaming magazine, but viewed on kbin.social.

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triip256•

thank you.

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theinspectorst•

That's what confused me. The comparison of instances with different email providers doesn't seem right to me because I can't work out how I subscribe to a 'magazine' on kbin.social if I'm signed up to fedia.io.

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Aggravating_War_2798•

Is there an iOS client for kbin? I tried Mlem but I couldn’t log in

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TheArstaInventorOP•

Hey! Kbin does not have an ios client as of yet, as it is under development. Mlem is for Lemmy and not for Kbin, I recommend you follow the instructions for installing kbin as PWA as shown in the guide. Let me know if that works for you!

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Aggravating_War_2798•

I just tried the webapp it’s not that bad actually! I’ll be using that until a proper client comes out

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TheArstaInventorOP•

Glad it worked out for you! Was the linked article helpful?

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gyffyn•

Has u/talklittle been engaged for the Android mobile development please? I've literally only ever browsed reddit on rif because I've found it so intuitive.

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NotTRYINGtobeLame•

Is this similar to the distributed concept of diaspora?

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imnormal•

Realizing that these Fediverse projects communicate with one another which is cool. I like the idea of using Kbin to access some of the communities on the main Lemmy instances because they about 10x the size at the local kbin magazines. Though, while it works, it doesn’t appear to work very well. Missing posts and comments I think. Hard to tell. Hopefully this improves.

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OwenEverbinde•

Reddthat, my home instance on Lemmy also has missing comments from certain time periods. Apparently, they are all from rollbacks that had to happen due to some update glitches. The mod has been working pretty hard to ensure it doesn't happen again, but maybe that's what happened at your kbin instance.

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Blueberry2736•

Can’t wait for apps to be able to use this

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chibi_cat2023•

Do you need to pay to make an account or use?

I saw a post there saying this: https://kbin.social/m/kbinMeta/t/13120/Donating-5-month-to-Kbin-to-keep-the-lights-on

Are we required to pay? I would love to support kbin, but as of now i can't.

Also im pretty stupid, so dumb it down for me, please.

1
pimadev•

You are not required to pay. Just keep in mind that these de-centralized projects are hosted by volunteers instead of a corporation, so they pay out of their own pocket. kbin.social seems to be down at the moment so I can't read your link but I assume it is talking about optional donations to the dev so they can contribute to the server costs.

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Adeptus_Gedeon•

How to add new post? I am in magazine: https://kbin.social/m/gaming I don't see option to create post anywhere. Yes, I know that I am stupid :(

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pedeEater•

I’ll see you there!

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Zearo298•

I'm trying to get started with Kbin to migrate, but I'm having some confusion. I followed the recommendation and registered at karab.in even though I'm American, I noticed when viewing my profile and post statistics that the stats in the graph are in Polish. I knew that the instance was meant for Poles, but is there any way to convert these sorts of pages to English naturally, or perhaps view my profile information on another instance where it's in English?

What if in the future more profile settings or even large portions of the instance become written in Polish? Will I have to forever work around that? Should I just register on kbin.social instead to be safe and futureproof? Will I need to browse my subscriptions only through this Polish instance?

There also seems to be no clear part of the guide that describes how to subscribe to a magazine that's not in my instance. I can't log in inside another instance to subscribe since my account doesn't seem to exist there.

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TheArstaInventorOP•

There are certainly some solutions here.

Regarding karab.in having some polish on certain parts of the UI, you can try installing an extension for translation (the best solution I can think of) and I can't guarantee if it won't or will get more polish either as I am not the admin of that instance, but there is no reason it won't get more polish.

The best solution I'd suggest is try signing up on fedia.io, it's fully english and run by the same admins behind info.exchange, a pretty reputable and long-standing Mastodon instance.

Hope it helps!

1